


Fights

by Popples123



Series: Pete/Mikey/Patrick AU [5]
Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: (a constant mood of mine tbh), Ace The Fish is mentioned! we are all here for him, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Character, Domestic Disputes, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mikey is sad and overreactive, Misunderstandings, Multi, Patrick just wants them to talk to each other, Pete doesn't understand, Peterickey, Polyamory, Protective Gerard Way, Smoking, Threats of Violence, also trigger warning because One Of Them burns himself intentionally??, and a tiny bit of actual violence?, attempt at humor at the end, gerard is angry, here we find ourselves, i told myself i wouldn't post again until may, i've accepted that this has to be the ship name, it is april, probably failed?, short blowjob scene (when is there not tbh), this series is back AGAIN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Popples123/pseuds/Popples123
Summary: Fights between Pete and Mikey are the worst because they don’t happen often and when they do the entire world seems to stop. Pete and Patrick just have immature dramas that are easily solved, and Mikey and Patrick never really argue at all. But with Pete and Mikey, it’s brutal and violent and each time is worse than the last. Patrick always worries that they’ll want to break up.





	Fights

**Author's Note:**

> Finished this in the middle of March and told myself I wouldn't post it until May "just in case I change mind" but it's April and I am impatient, so good afternoon.
> 
> I shamelessly recommend you read the other fics from this series before this one but if you don't want to, you're in luck because this one actually makes sense as a standalone! Fanservice, amiright?
> 
> Enjoy :)

Fights between Pete and Mikey are the worst because they don’t happen often and when they do the entire world seems to stop. Pete and Patrick just have immature dramas that are easily solved, and Mikey and Patrick never really argue at all. But with Pete and Mikey, it’s brutal and violent and each time is worse than the last. Patrick always worries that they’ll want to break up.

He doesn’t remember what specific thing caused Mikey’s sudden outburst of rage tonight. Maybe it was an abundance of little grudges that slowly built up as if they were a ticking time bomb, and something must have occurred that caused the explosion.

It was only two hours ago. They were eating dinner and they all had a few drinks in them, just because. Pete was discussing in great depth how much he wanted to stay off work tomorrow, and Patrick was stealing the food that Pete wasn’t eating due to his tangent. Mikey was listening, nodding, and occasionally shoving forkfuls of salmon into his mouth. Everything was fine.

Once dinner was done, all the dishes were put in the dishwasher and Pete and Patrick decided they wanted to watch a movie, and Mikey announced that he wanted to sit in the kitchen to read instead, so they should go on without him. Patrick wasn’t fussed – he knows Mikey thrives on frequent solitude – but Pete made a comment asking, “Why do you always choose reading over spending time with us?”

Mikey had just looked at Pete, like he wasn’t sure if there was deeper meaning behind that question, and then he said, “I just like being alone sometimes.”

And Pete had mumbled an irritated, “Whatever, Mikey,” and headed into the living room, but was stopped in his tracks by Mikey grabbing him and demanding to know what his problem was. Pete had elaborated on his earlier question, saying “Every time I want to do something you’d rather read and blank us instead,” and Mikey glared at him for an awfully long time before pushing past him to go upstairs, already sensing an unnecessary fight. He managed reach the living room door before Pete stepped in front of him.

“Let me go upstairs,” Mikey said and Pete remained still. Mikey got irritated and tried to push Pete back, and Pete shoved him so hard in response that he dropped his book and had to grab Patrick to stabilize himself. “What the fuck, Pete?!”

“I didn’t mean to push you that hard!”

And Mikey, with so much anger in his eyes that it even scared Patrick, pushed Pete again and proceeded to make his way towards the back door instead.

“So you’re just leaving now?” Pete sounded concerned and bitter at the same time.

“Just going for a smoke.” Mikey was noticeably miserable and Patrick wanted to check on him, but Pete made a snide remark before he could.

“So you’d rather slowly kill yourself than watch one film with us?”

And that was when Mikey lost it and started _screaming_ at Pete, cussing him out and threatening to physically fight him and everything. Pete had stalked right up to him and dared him to do exactly that, and Mikey told him to fuck off. Patrick tried to intervene but Mikey ushered him out of the way and Pete, thinking that Mikey had pushed Patrick, told him to leave Patrick alone.

“What, so I can’t touch my own boyfriend now?” Mikey was so pissed off he was laughing. Meanwhile, Patrick begged him to calm down. “Is he strictly yours now?”

“He never said that, Mikey,” Patrick spoke up timidly and gently held Mikey’s hand after noticing how violently shaky he was. “Relax, please.”

“Oh, look Pete, _your_ boyfriend is touching me. What are you gonna do about it? Huh?” Mikey was now intentionally aggravating Pete and when Pete questioned why, Mikey shouted, “’Cause it’s always about property with you!” And Pete, despite being clueless about where Mikey’s anger was coming from, had decided he’d had enough.

“You know what, Mikey?” Pete held Mikey’s wrists hard enough to bruise them, but unlike other times when the reason was usually to turn Mikey on, Patrick realized Pete was definitely hurting him on purpose. “Fuck this, and fuck you. I haven’t got time for your immature bullshit. Stop making a big deal out of nothing! Go upstairs where you can’t fuck up our night anymore!” He shook Mikey as he spoke and then roughly released him after he was done talking.

But Mikey stood his ground and maintained eye contact, even though tears were welling up and he eventually choked out a sob. “I’m not, I’m not being immature-“

“And yet you’re fucking crying.” Pete spat back. “Go avoid us, go smoke your lungs black, whatever! See if I care!”

“You never do!” Mikey snapped, and Pete, with an expression of pure hurt on his face, stormed out of the house without saying goodbye.

And then Mikey threw his book at the door and broke down in tears, and Patrick had no idea who to take care of first.

~

Two hours have passed and that’s all Patrick can recall from the argument. Pete still hasn’t come home and Mikey still hasn’t stopped crying.

At first, he was angry. He punched the walls and smashed up two picture frames in the hallway, and then more glass shattering sounded from the kitchen moments later. All Patrick could do was sit on the sofa with his hands over his ears, waiting for it to be over.

Then there was the shouting. Frustrated crying and a frequent string of swearwords understandably made Patrick want to check on Mikey multiple times during the breakdown, but he knew he had to stay where he was. Unlike himself and Pete, Mikey rarely ever fights with anyone and whenever he’s upset because of someone, his breakdowns can turn violent very often. It’s not intentional but it’s much safer for Patrick to stay out of Mikey’s path until he’s ready to be calm again, because he might end up getting hurt otherwise and Mikey would end his life on the spot if he were to cause any of his boyfriends physical pain, especially Patrick because he’s done nothing wrong tonight.

So Patrick sat on the sofa, hugging his knees and trying to resist giving Mikey a long, long hug when he heard the cries grow more and more broken.

And then came silence and Mikey quietly entered the living room a little while later, eyes bloodshot and his knuckles badly bruised and bloody. He curled up wordlessly next to Patrick, and he remains in that position right this very second, while Patrick twirls his hair the way he’s been doing since Mikey first lay down beside him.

He knows as soon as Mikey stops shaking that he’s calm. That’s a telltale sign the breakdown has ended and though what Patrick is about to do could very well trigger a worse one, it’s important that he calls Mikey out on the unnecessary argument.

“Want to tell me how all of that escalated so quickly?”

“Wanted to feel somethin’,” Mikey murmurs into Patrick’s chest, his shirt soaked through with Mikey’s tears.

“I meant the argument between you and Pete,” Patrick says and tries to ignore how Mikey’s reason behind his meltdown hurts his heart.

Silence ensues for a long while before Mikey finally sits up, and his face is damp and blotchy. “I wanted to read.”

“I know.” Patrick chooses his next words very carefully. “So why did both of you fight?”

“He doesn’t listen.”

“Okay...” Patrick glances around the room and then back at Mikey. He reaches forward to hold both of Mikey’s hands. “And when you said he never cares?”

“He doesn’t care.” Mikey keeps his answers vague and it frustrates Patrick.

“How?” He says in a soft voice and sneaks a quick glance at the clock. Quarter to midnight. Where is Pete?

“He just... doesn’t.” Mikey shakes his head and picks at one of the many cuts on his hands, no doubt caused from all the glass he broke. Patrick squeezes his hands tighter to stop him from further irritating the damaged skin.

The hand on the clock moves and Patrick sighs slowly. “Something is eating at you. Otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.”

Blinking back fresh tears, Mikey straightens and looks out of the window to the right of him.

“Mikey,” Patrick raises his voice to capture Mikey’s attention. “Please, please talk to me.”

“Sex,” Mikey states simply, and Patrick cocks his head to the side to express confusion. Mikey notices and expands his explanation. “You know he loves you because you guys don’t do that and still have such a strong connection to the point where he can nearly kill your fish and you still love him as you always did.”

“When did he nearly-“

“But him and I,” Mikey hurries on, not in the mood for switching the subject, “I wanted to read and it caused a fucking riot between us. And he said so himself – he doesn’t care about me. He was acting so _possessive_ , like he owned me or something.”

“I thought that was a thing between you two?” Patrick asks nervously and hopes Mikey won’t get mad.

Mikey shakes his head again and seems much sadder now. “No. He dominates me. He doesn’t _own_ me. I’m not a fucking toy for him to put his dick into whenever he wants to.”

Patrick frowns. “Nobody has _ever_ said that _or_ implied that. He wanted to watch a movie and asked why you didn’t want to. That doesn’t mean he thinks you belong to him. I think you’re exaggerating.”

“But think about it,” Mikey says, and Patrick’s eyes widen once he realises what Mikey is hinting at.

“Do you... do you think Pete is using you for sex?”

Mikey shrugs and sighs. “Kind of. Not necessarily. Just... it feels like I... I don’t matter the way you do to him.”

“Pete and I argue way more than you and him argue, though,” Patrick says. “And he drags me into things way more than he drags you into things. If anyone should be saying this sort of stuff, it’s me.”

Mikey ducks his head down and mumbles, “But he also expresses affection more often with you than with me. You, he - he doesn’t let you smoke because he’s scared for your health but he holds the door open for me when I go out for a cig. When he wants to love you he shows it. When he wants to love me he just fucks me. You’re more important to him.”

“What are you trying to say Mikey?”

“I’m saying that if you weren’t asexual there’d be no point in me being here.”

It’s midnight before Patrick processes that sentence, and Mikey stares at the window the whole time. His hands are still bleeding and he wants to go on a drive forever.

“Seriously?” Patrick’s voice snaps him back into reality. “You think _that_ low of Pete? Of _me_? What about the love _I_ show to you? You really think something as meaningless as my sexuality is the only reason you live with us?!”

Mikey shields his eyes with his hair and covers his face.

“Pete would die for you and so would I, and you’re fucking doubting us because we express love differently than you! All because Pete can show you love in two ways but can only show me in one way! Ever stopped to think that _that_ ’s why he seems to give me affection more often?!”

And then Mikey looks up again, fresh tears streaming down his face, and Patrick softens. He watches Mikey anxiously until he finally speaks.

“I know,” his voice quivers. “I just. Of course there’s nothing wrong with the way you are but... if you and him _did_ have sexual relations, there’d be absolutely no point in me being here. You receive the same love off of both of us, so me being gone wouldn’t make a difference, and he’d receive both things he needs primarily from you if you weren’t asexual. You two have such a strong bond. You mean the world to me, and I know you feel the same way back, but I feel like Pete _doesn’t_ see the world of me. There’s nothing special about me. I wouldn’t be needed if you two-“

“That’s ridic-“

“I want out.”

Those words cause Patrick’s mind to stop racing, and he sits stunned into silence with his eyes blown wide as his heartbeat picks up erratically. “Wh-what?”

Mikey repeats his sentence louder this time, and Patrick starts physically shaking. He is at a total loss on what to do and the more he pleads “no, no, you have to stay,” the more Mikey seems to become disengaged in the conversation. The only logical solution is to find Pete and beg him to prove Mikey wrong, so while Mikey cries on the sofa, Patrick locks all the windows and announces that he’s going to search for Pete. Then he locks the door once he’s outside to prevent Mikey from leaving the house, and he sets off to find what will no doubt be an extremely intoxicated Pete who will be no help at all.

He walks for ten minutes before flagging a taxi and he shows the driver a picture of Pete, asking him to drive slowly in case Pete is wandering. There is no sign of him, so once they reach the street that has the bars that Patrick, Pete and Mikey often frequent on their nights out, Patrick hands the man $25 and exits the vehicle, determined to find his boyfriend.

In the fifth bar, he spots said man slumped over the counter with his fingers loosely curled around a half-empty glass, and his mouth slurs incoherent sentences to the man next to him. Patrick rushes over and lifts Pete into a sitting position, relieved when he doesn’t put up a fuss.

“Mikey hates meee.” Pete chugs his drink and Patrick prises the glass from Pete’s hand once he finishes, and he requests a glass of water from the bartender.

“He doesn’t. He thinks you hate him, actually.” Patrick doesn’t get into specifics or mention the chilling truth that Mikey wants out of the relationship, just forces Pete to drink the water and asks for another.

Figuring that Pete is too drunk to be educated on why Mikey is upset, Patrick decides to just try and get him home and they can deal with everything from there. It takes assistance from the very well-built man next to Pete to get Pete outside, and Patrick learns that this man sat next to Pete an hour ago and had to endure Pete drunkenly weeping about the events of tonight for the full 60 minutes. Patrick laughs and thanks him.

Coincidentally, the same taxi driver picks them up. Once they arrive outside their house, Patrick offers $40 this time and Pete offers a straw. The driver takes both, perplexed at the latter item, as Patrick struggles to drag Pete out of the car and into the yard.

Soon, the car has left and the door to the house is unlocked. Pete stumbles in, followed by an exhausted Patrick who pales at the sight of more blood droplets on the floor. Has Mikey even bothered to clean his wounds up?

Apparently not, Patrick discovers when he enters the kitchen and sees Mikey lying on his back, chain-smoking cigarettes that he keeps putting out on his wrist. Patrick sighs and kneels down beside him. “I brought Pete home. He’s drank a lot.”

“M’smoking.” Mikey is just as tired as Patrick. His chest rises and falls slowly and Patrick rests his hand on top of it.

“Thanks for the lift, baby.” Pete’s voice is slightly less slurred than before but he’s still absolutely wasted. He kisses Patrick and says, “I’m sorry about earlier. I love you.” Mikey takes another drag.

Things seem to be semi-okay when everyone is upstairs preparing to sleep. The only lights on in the house are the ones in the bedroom, hallway, and bathroom. Pete has washed his face and Patrick has just finished filling the sink with lukewarm water to begin cleaning Mikey’s cuts when Pete comes up behind him.

“Mikey, Mikey.” His lips are against Mikey’s neck and any other time Mikey would be weak for him, but tonight he looks completely uninterested. “Mikey, I love you, lemme fuck you ‘n we can make up.”

A bitter laugh sounds from Mikey’s mouth and he pulls away from Pete’s grip and forces Pete’s hands off of his waist, causing some of the wounds on his own hands to reopen. “See what I mean?” He glares at Patrick and yanks the plug out of the sink so all the water drains away. “You get a sincere apology. I get asked to fuck.”

And he slams the bathroom door shut after announcing he’s sleeping on the couch, and though Pete is too drunk to comprehend what happened, he does notice something not being right when he goes to bed. But he can’t quite put his finger on why he has more room than usual to move around.

Patrick has a restless sleep, and come 2AM he’s back downstairs hunting for Mikey, leaving Pete unconscious on the bed. Throughout his searching he continuously rehearses a monologue in his head on how to convince Mikey that he _is_ wanted, but when he comes across his boyfriend sitting out in the yard on the grass staring at the sky, everything he memorized is wiped from his mind and all he wants to do is cry.

He closes the door behind him and walks down the steps. “Mikey, please come back inside,” he says weakly, knowing Mikey will ignore him. He slowly approaches Mikey and kneels down on the grass next to him. The night is eerily silent and there is the distant sound of a car engine revving.

“I want out,” Mikey whispers, and Patrick feels sick.

“It’s so late,” he says quietly and tugs at Mikey’s arm. “Pete is drunk and it’s so cold. You can’t leave.”

“Drunk ‘cause of me.” Mikey drops his head down and hugs his knees closer to him, tensing when Patrick hugs him tight. He’s only wearing a baggy shirt and boxers. His skin is ice cold.

“Tomorrow, Mikey,” Patrick says shakily. “If you still feel this way tomorrow then you can go. But please stay for tonight. I’ll dig out some blankets and you can sleep on the couch if that’s what you want.”

Mikey says nothing and allows Patrick to lead him into the house hand in hand. Sticking to his promise, he sources three blankets from the cupboard in the hallway and places them over an already half-asleep Mikey. He leaves a cup of water by the sofa and puts Mikey’s glasses on the coffee table. His phone is plugged into the charger across the room and the heating is turned up to ensure that he stays warm.

“I’m going back upstairs now, okay? Goodnight.” Patrick kisses Mikey’s forehead and ruffles his hair. “I love you so, so much.”

Mikey curls into the back of the sofa and doesn’t respond.

~

Pete is terribly hungover the next morning and the bed is empty. Working in this condition won’t be possible so he calls in sick and catches up on a further three hours of sleep before finally getting up.

Yesterday’s argument is still fresh in his mind, though he can’t remember the end result. However, when he embarks on a search for painkillers and comes downstairs to discover Mikey asleep on the sofa and Patrick sluggishly cleaning up the hallway, Pete concludes that the ending can’t have been a good one.

~

That evening, Mikey still won’t speak to either of them. Patrick left for work three hours ago and Mikey doesn’t have a shift today, so he and Pete are alone together and Mikey won’t eat or move or _talk_ , and it terrifies Pete. He is clueless about why Mikey’s attitude is like this and without Patrick here it seems impossible to fix this.

He tries, though. He cooks Mikey’s favourite food for dinner, but Mikey doesn’t take a single bite. He sits next to him and tries to converse, but Mikey just burrows further into his cocoon of blankets to avoid him. When Mikey goes to smoke right here in the living room, Pete even goes to the effort of opening the windows instead of forcing him outside, but all it seems to do is upset Mikey further.

Patrick comes home hoping that the conflict between them will have been resolved but it becomes apparent very quickly that the tension is still there, because Mikey is in the same place he was this morning, staring into space, and Pete is on his third shot of alcohol in the kitchen as he scribbles into a notebook. Patrick wants to help but he’s hurting too, so he just confiscates Pete’s bottle and storms upstairs, lying in bed and making sure he’s concealed by the duvet before he starts to cry. Mikey will leave tonight. Patrick is sure of it.

Pete finds him hours later, having sobered up and decided that it’s too late to continue working on getting Mikey to talk. He dumps his notebook on the nightstand and eases Patrick out from under the duvet, hugging him tightly.

“The world is falling apart.” Patrick says this every time Pete and Mikey fight and it never fails to break Pete’s heart. Patrick cries harder and falls against Pete, who’s holding him silently.

“What can I do, ‘Rick?”

“Talk to him. Just talk to him.” Patrick rubs his eyes and pushes Pete back. “Lack of communication got him into this mess. Communication will bring him out of it.”

“But we talk about everything.”

“Apparently not, so he thinks,” Patrick says and Pete suddenly seems a lot more attentive now. Perhaps he will do what Patrick asked?

Patrick lies back down as he watches Pete rub cream onto a couple of spots on his forehead, and then Pete walks over to the side of the bed and makes Patrick stand up, saying that he’s going to need help convincing Mikey to come upstairs. He has no idea that Mikey hasn’t even been convinced to _stay_ , let alone come upstairs.

All the lights in the living room are off but there is one on in the kitchen, and Pete and Patrick enter to see Mikey kneeling against the wall with a cigarette between his lips. Patrick sighs and Pete steps closer and reaches down, trying to pull it out of Mikey’s mouth.

When Mikey resists, Pete compromises and says, “Alright, fine. One more drag and then you need to stop.”

And Mikey takes three more before putting it out on his wrist, holding eye contact with Pete the whole time. There are now seven separate burn marks on his wrist. “Since when do you care?”

“Mikey-“

“Hey,” Patrick interrupts and he grabs Mikey’s arm. Judging by the malice in Mikey’s voice, another argument was on the rise. “Can you come upstairs so I can clean you up? You’ve still not done it and your hands are gonna get infected.”

Mikey stares at the wall and whines in protest but Patrick pulls him to his feet anyways. “Okay. Okay, sure,” Mikey finally says, and Pete follows the two of them into the upstairs bathroom.

Just like last night, the sink is filled with lukewarm water and Mikey sits on the edge of the bath as Patrick gently cleans his wounds with a face cloth. Mikey doesn’t say anything or look at anyone, just keeps his eyes trained on the water that is slowly turning red. He’s unconscious of Pete holding him to ensure he doesn’t fall backwards into the bathtub.

“Can we talk?” Pete’s voice cuts through the silence as Patrick turns Mikey’s hand over.

Mikey says, “No,” rather bluntly.

They go back to silence after that, and after around twenty minutes Patrick pulls the plug and leaves Mikey alone with Pete so he can go get bandaids, and he secretly hopes that they’ll talk out some of their feelings with one another. Once he comes back upstairs, however, he finds that though Pete is still holding Mikey, he hasn’t made any progress with talking to him. Patrick sighs and wraps Mikey’s hands up, wondering if _he_ should just tell Pete everything instead.

“Will you be sleeping with us tonight?” Patrick asks Mikey hopefully.

“I haven’t got anywhere to go-“

“I mean in the bed.”

“No.”

Pete silently watches the exchange and decides that something more severe must be happening right under his nose. Why is Mikey talking about finding somewhere else to stay? And why is he choosing the arguably _very_ uncomfortable sofa over his bed?

A further ten minutes pass and Pete and Patrick are in the bedroom together, while Mikey is downstairs again. Pete doesn’t understand why Patrick is keeping the key to the door upstairs tonight.

One hour into the night, he can’t take the unanswered questions anymore.

“Patrick?” He whispers. “Why isn’t Mikey here?”

“You can talk to him tomorrow,” Patrick says and his voice is filled with sadness.

“But he wouldn’t let me talk to him _today_.”

Patrick doesn’t speak and normally Pete hugs him from behind while Patrick nuzzles against Mikey, but tonight Patrick turns around and hugs Pete properly. “He’s sad.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Pete rolls his eyes and kicks the duvet off of him. With Mikey sleeping downstairs, the heating in the house is up almost all the way. It’s too hot.

“I’m gonna tell you what he told me and you can’t get mad at him because I already did, and I shouted at him and called him out on how _stupid_ he’s being, so he only needs to hear that once, okay?” Patrick waits until Pete nods before continuing. “Once you properly think about why he’d say this sort of stuff I think you’ll understand where he’s coming from better.”

The bedside lamp flickers on and Patrick tries not to focus on Mikey’s book being right there. He hasn’t even read since the fight, despite his desire to read being what caused it. It hurts Patrick’s heart.

“Tell me what he said,” Pete says, and Patrick takes a deep breath.

There’s no way to say this without it being blunt, so Patrick just goes for it. “He thinks you’re using him for sex.”

“What?”

“I know. It’s stupid, but the more he explained it the more it made sense. So, uh, know how you and I just... don’t?” Pete watches Patrick and his eyes gloss over. Patrick feels bad for him. “Well, obviously we, like, need to express our love primarily through affection. But with you and him, you both can express love through affection _and_ sex.”

“I am aware of this, you know?” Pete says, confused at how any of this is relevant.

“Yes. Trust me, I’m onto something.” Patrick laughs nervously and the sound makes Pete smile a little. “So basically, Mikey is really observant, we both know that. And because we’re constantly lovey with one another but you and him are only sometimes lovey and other times just... yeah, you know... whatever, he’s drawn the conclusion that that means you love me more and that if I weren’t asexual he wouldn’t be needed here.”

Pete has his head in his hands and he can’t get _any_ of this to add up. “He actually said that?”

“Pretty much word for word. And yes, I went _through_ him for it. But it did make sense. You let him smoke but won’t let me smoke, you came home last night and apologised to me but just wanted to fuck him – it _does_ make sense when you look at it from his point of view.”

“It’s not my fault that he doesn’t respond to affection! How was I supposed to know he wanted it when nearly every time I give him it, he just covers his face and tells me to shut up?”

Patrick gestures for Pete to keep his voice down. “See, this is why you two need to communicate properly. And when I say that I mean _communicate_ about _everything_ , not just ‘hard limits’ or whatever the fuck that is.”

“It means-“

“I don’t care what it means! Take the hint! Go downstairs and talk to Mikey!”

Though Pete pretends not to be, he is terrified of Patrick when Patrick gets mad, so the second he raises his voice Pete is on his feet and speed walking towards the stairs. Patrick follows close behind and they walk slowly once they reach the bottom so that the noise won’t waken Mikey if he happens to be asleep. The room is pitch black and Patrick can hear shaky breathing, and once he turns on the light he spots Mikey sitting up with his face buried in the blankets, his body shaking with sobs.

Almost immediately, Pete rushes to hug him and Mikey hugs right back, probably unaware that he’s hugging the very person that got him into this state in the first place. Patrick sits at the other end of the sofa and rests a hand on Mikey’s knee, and he rubs soothing circles into it when he cries harder.

“Mikey, please tell me what’s wrong,” Pete says as if he doesn’t know already. Mikey tenses when he hears that voice but then decides that a hug from Pete is better than no hug at all, so he squeezes him tighter. “Mikey, Mikey, tell me what’s wrong.”

Mikey shakes his head and Pete can feel his shirt getting damp. Patrick watches silently, and without any warning Pete peels Mikey’s hands off of his waist and heads back upstairs. 

“Where did he go?” Mikey’s voice is hoarse and Patrick wonders how long he’s been crying for.

“You’re upset. Why didn’t you come upstairs?” Patrick avoids Mikey’s question purely because he has no clue what the answer is, so he’d rather focus on other more important things instead.

“Couldn’t be bothered.” It’s clearly not the truth but at least Mikey is talking. “I might move in with my brother.”

“You told him everything?” Patrick asks nervously.

Mikey shakes his head and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “No. Just asked if I could crash for a few days until I figure out some stuff. He said its fine.”

The thought of Mikey leaving makes Patrick’s stomach churn. “And when will this be happening?”

“Tomorrow morning. He said he’ll pick me up at nine.”

They say nothing else and that sentence hangs heavily in the air until Pete returns with tissues for Mikey’s face. He kneels beside the sofa and gently wipes his tears away, and then starts talking regardless of whether or not he thinks Mikey is listening.

“So Patrick told me everything.” Patrick receives a death glare from Mikey after Pete says that. “And I’m kind of mad, but I get what you’re saying.”

“Why do you not let him smoke but let me smoke?”

“ _That’s_ what’s bothering you the most?” Pete asks incredulously and Mikey nods his head. “Because I don’t want him to start because he won’t be able to stop, but you’ve already started and I know a lot of it is due to your anxiety, so I figured that if I showed you some support you’d realize I’d support _you_ as a person and not just the choices you make. Shouting at you to stop won’t make you stop.”

Mikey swallows whatever he’s about to say and drops his gaze to the floor.

“And about the sex, I’m not using you for sex at all. I thought you liked it.”

“I do,” Mikey whispers shakily.

“Then what’s the issue? You know I love you both equally.”

Another shaky sigh, and Mikey slumps down against the sofa, exhausted. “Just felt like you show love to him more. Last night you were saying sorry to him, and when you came up to me you just wanted to fuck me. That’s not fair.”

“I was drunk.”

“Drunk man’s words, sober man’s thoughts,” Mikey snaps and covers his face again when new tears start to fall.  Pete gives up and walks out of the living room, and Patrick crawls closer to Mikey and hugs him close.

They lie like that for a long time, Patrick being well aware of the fact that this may be the last night he ever gets to hug Mikey like this, and he kisses his neck because that’s what Mikey likes, so he’s surprised when Mikey shrugs him off and curls in on himself. He doesn’t respond to touch anymore, and that’s when it clicks with Patrick – Mikey wants _words_.

He has no idea how to go about that, though. He expresses his love to Pete through joking insults and endless hugs, and with Mikey it’s usually just a look of pure adoration and lots of hugs and neck kisses. Patrick usually receives all the cute rambles; he’s not used to giving them out. It’s not by choice. It’s just because nobody’s ever complained about this setup before now.

“Hey,” he whispers and Mikey tenses again. “I love you more than anything in the world. More than my fish.” That part makes Mikey laugh a little and Patrick smiles. “You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met.” He punctuates that sentence with a kiss to Mikey’s wrist, directly over the burn marks and faint bruising from last night. He figures that he should just give Mikey as much affection as possible without it seeming forced. “You’re important here. You hold this thing together. If you were to leave, the next time you’d hear from us is when you and Gerard are watching crime documentaries and you find out I’m on death row for drowning Pete in the fucking bath.”

“Why does everythin’ go back to murder w’you two?” Mikey sounds amused but he still hasn’t looked up.

“’Cause you’re our rock and if you weren’t in the picture I’d have nobody to keep me sane.”

“He does drive you insane a lot,” Mikey whispers and now his body is vibrating with laughter. Patrick’s heart feels warmer.

“Seriously, Mikey. If you want to leave then you can leave. The whole point in us three doing this thing is we love each other unconditionally and support each other through anything, kind of like how Pete supports you smoking because he knows it’s better than you having six panic attacks a day. This is all about love, so if you really do want to go live with your brother then I’ll drive you there myself, because although we want you here we also want what’s best for _you_ , and I love you enough to let you go if it makes you happier.”

Mikey doesn’t say anything and he keeps his face hidden, though Patrick notices a blush creeping up his neck. He kisses the top of Mikey’s head just in time for Pete reentering the room.

Unlike Patrick’s gentle approach, Pete goes for a much harsher one. He throws a leather notebook onto Mikey’s lap and says, “ _This_ is a proper example of a drunk man’s words being a sober man’s thoughts,” and then he pulls Mikey’s hair to force him to look up.

“Pete, that hurts-“

“Read, Mikey.”

The sternness in Pete’s voice makes the hairs on the back of Mikey’s neck stand up, so he reluctantly opens the book at the first page. It’s Pete’s hand writing but some of it is completely ineligible. Patrick twists around so he has his back against the sofa, and he keeps Mikey close to him as he also reads the pages.

Whether it’s Mikey’s eyes being blurred with tears or just Pete not being able to write neatly, Mikey can’t be sure, but he can’t make out majority of the words. Patrick, however, can understand most things, and he keeps watching Mikey for a reaction, but after 14 pages there still isn’t any.

“Mikey, are you reading it?”

“I can’t understand it but he’s really... adamant that I do it so...”

“Mikey, he’s writing about you,” Patrick says and Mikey frowns.

“Huh?”

Pete decides this is a good moment to flop down on the sofa and Mikey sighs heavily before moving closer to Patrick to allow Pete more room. Pete takes the notebook off of Mikey and Patrick expects him to read it out loud, but Pete just flicks to the most recent two pages and hands it back to Mikey.

“This is from tonight, when you wouldn’t speak a fucking word to me all day long and I decided drinking myself half to death was better than being sober through that. And I wrote this shit about you. So don’t fucking say I only care about your body when I’ve been drinking. There’s not one fucking mention of your body.”

“I never said-“

“Mikey, just read the page,” Patrick speaks softly and Mikey sighs before doing as he’s told. He rubs his eyes and readjusts his glasses, and holds the book close to him so he can make out the words.

Most of it is a jumbled mess, as disordered as what Pete’s thoughts normally are. But from what Mikey can make out, it says something like, _you won’t speak to me tonight and i have no idea what i did wrong or how to make it right and you keep crying thinking you’re quiet but i can hear you and i want to hug you but you won’t let me touch you. i want to tell you everything im thinking but whenever i go near you you turn the other way. how do i tell you i love you eternally and that id give my life for you when you won’t even look at me long enough for me to say these things. i miss you and its only been one day. you and patrick are the most important people in my life and your won’t stop crying. i hate when we don’t talk because then you never look at me and i find myself forgetting the colour of your eyes and all i want is for you to talk to me again. you’re hurting and you won’t let me kiss you anymore. you always love when i kiss you. and i always love when you kiss me back. but im drunk and you’re worlds away and it feels like you’re leaving me in the dark. i love you i love you i love you i love you. you’re my entire world. let me fucking love you._

“What does this mean?” Mikey sounds extremely confused and goes to read it again in case he missed something.

“You never really showed a liking towards rants so anything I want to say to you I write down,” Pete mumbles, almost as if he’s ashamed of it, and he turns back to an older page. “Like this one, this was when we had our date night last Halloween and you got too drunk and threw up for three hours in the bathroom, and you kept shouting at me when I tried to comfort you, so I just wrote instead.”

“The page just says ‘I’m in love with you’ like thirty times,” Mikey says and tries to sound monotone and unamused, but Patrick can see the ghost of a smile starting to show and a blush is appearing on his cheeks. “You can just tell me-“

“You were shouting at me!” Pete laughs and Mikey lowers his head to hide his own smile.

“I was drunk.”

“A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts,” Pete mimics Mikey’s argument from earlier and Patrick rolls his eyes, but he feels more hopeful now. Pete and Mikey are talking again and it’s ending in laughter instead of yelling. Are they making up?

Mikey skims through more pages and stops at one with several hearts drawn on it. “So... you own a notebook filled with sappy rants towards me?”

After some hesitation, Pete quietly corrects Mikey. “I actually own four, and two of those are song books. You’ve never been big on verbal affection so any time you seemed a little... off whenever I was trying to give you some, I just wrote about you.”

“That’s, uh...” Mikey trails off and turns the page. “Sweet.” He sounds on edge and Patrick squeezes his hand. Pete just watches him.

Nothing important is said for a long while after that and although it’s after midnight, none of them want to go to sleep just yet. Pete makes a second dinner, one that Mikey actually eats this time, and Patrick cautiously suggests they watch the movie they were meant to watch last night. Mikey goes along with it, making no comments about his book, but Pete goes upstairs and gets him it anyways, just in case. For some reason, Mikey hides his face when Pete sets it down next to him.

“Is he okay?” Pete whispers to Patrick once he’s sat down next to him on the other sofa. Both of them mutually agreed that they should continue to give Mikey space until he requests otherwise. “He still seems really sad. Even more so, actually.”

“Just give him time,” is all Patrick says, and then he turns the TV on.

‘Time’ takes exactly one hour and forty five minutes, according to how long the movie is running for when Mikey suddenly stands up. Patrick half expects him to come over and sit next to him and Pete, but instead Mikey leaves the room. The book remains untouched and sitting on the armrest, and Pete is up and running after him before Patrick has even paused the film.

In the bedroom, they find Mikey lying face down, clutching Pete’s notebook in one hand and his pillow in the other. When Patrick nudges him he immediately recoils and in any other circumstance, Patrick would leave him alone, but he’s sick of all this drama, especially now that Pete has proved him wrong.

“Mikey, sit up,” Patrick snaps and Mikey nervously complies. “What the fuck is wrong now-“

“I feel bad,” Mikey whispers shakily and Patrick frowns. He’d anticipated something about Pete, maybe the fact that he’d sat next to Patrick and left Mikey alone. “I don’t know.”

“Why do you feel bad?” Pete sits on the bed and after some hesitation decides to curl his fingers around Mikey’s wrist. Unlike last night, it’s a gentle hold, and Mikey doesn’t pull back.

“I think I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, we know you did,” Patrick says rather coldly but he shifts closer to Mikey. The anger in his voice mixed with his caring gestures is making Mikey’s head spin. It’s sending a lot of mixed signals.

“I just felt really alone and he, he kept shouting at me, and, and I didn’t get why he-“

Pete kisses Mikey to shut him up and then hugs him closely to keep him silent. “Mikey, we know what happened, both of us were there. It doesn’t matter. I proved you wrong, you’ve apologized to me – there’s nothing more we can do. Just talk to me more instead of sulking in silence until it all builds up into an unneeded fight.”

This time when Mikey cries, he doesn’t push anyone away and because he has both boyfriends whispering soothing things to him, he calms down almost right away. For a short while he lies with them in silence, and then once Patrick quietly vocalises his desperation to finish their film, they’re back downstairs with the movie unpaused less than twenty minutes later. And they’re all sitting on the same sofa.

 _Progress_ , Patrick thinks.

He chooses not to comment on it. Letting Pete and Mikey resolve everything independently seems like the way to go, so once the credits come onscreen, Patrick heads upstairs alone to feed Ace.

“They’re getting better,” he informs the fish as it swims around in circles to chase after the food Patrick sprinkled into the water. “No more shouting anymore, hopefully. I think you might go deaf if there’s more.”

“Okay, I know Pete and I acted super immature lately,” Mikey says from where he’s currently standing in the doorway, “but please tell me you’re on the phone to someone and not talking to that fish.”

Patrick turns around and shows two empty hands. Pete appears in the doorway too and jumps to his defence, saying, “Michael, do not insult the gift.”

“The fish is the gift?” Mikey still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that his two boyfriends seem to consider this animal an actual part of this family, almost like a fourth person in their little group. “Guys, come _on_.”

“Don’t insult the gift,” Pete repeats and pokes Mikey’s chest. For a split second Patrick panics, thinking more arguing might ensue, but Mikey just smiles widely and walks towards the bathroom. Pete closes the door over before walking away, too.

When Patrick is done feeding Ace, he exits the spare room and his ears pick up on water running. Assuming someone is in the shower, he decides to skip brushing his teeth and just go straight to bed, so he enters the bedroom and already starts talking about plans for tomorrow when he realises the room is empty.

“Uh, guys?” He calls out and peers around the bedroom and the spare room before rushing downstairs. All the lights are off and the only noise is the tap in the kitchen sink dripping. “Mikey?” He shouts this time, panic building up inside him when he realises the door is unlocked. Has he left?

He runs back upstairs two steps at a time and shoves the bathroom door open, shouting “Mikey’s gone- _oh_.”

When Patrick looks at the shower he discovers that Mikey is looking right at him, extremely confused as to why he’s shouting, and Pete is on his knees, and once Patrick realises that he walks back out as quickly as he entered.

So they _have_ made up, then. Okay.

Headphones and loud music are his go-to and he lies back on the mattress, sipping a half drunk bottle of water Pete left here last night as he waits for his boyfriends to come out of the shower. It only takes twenty minutes for Mikey to push the bedroom door open, and he appears much livelier than what he did earlier. He jumps onto the mattress next to Patrick, who notices that there are several hickeys on his neck.

“So you and Pete are friends again?” Patrick stares at the marks.

“Yep,” Mikey says happily. “He wouldn’t stop apologizing for last night so I told him to be quiet and just do what he wanted.”

In the bathroom, Patrick can hear Pete blowdrying his hair. “Ever thought that maybe your constant avoidance of affection is why he doesn’t bother showering you in love?”

“I am realising that now, yes.”

Patrick laughs softly and hugs Mikey for a long time. He’s too scared to ask if he’ll be sleeping here tonight, but the fact that Mikey is in fresh clothes and is making no effort to go downstairs is a good sign.

Soon, Pete arrives and switches off the light before lying on the other side of the bed. Silence follows and normally he or Patrick would break it to talk about something utterly stupid, but tonight it’s Mikey who speaks, which is abnormal considering he’d normally be the first to fall asleep.

“You guys are my favourite people. I’m in this forever.”

Patrick smiles, relief crashing over him when he realises that this means Mikey is staying, and Pete just awkwardly reaches over Patrick to try and hug Mikey. After two failed attempts that result in poor Patrick almost being crushed, he suggests they let Mikey lie in the middle tonight.

“Are you sure?” Pete asks Patrick. “You’re _always_ in the middle. That’s how it’s been since we first moved in together.”

“Yeah, true.” Patrick agrees, but he still sits up to switch places with Mikey. “But Mikey’s got nearly two days worth of hugs and kisses to catch up on, so.”

Pete can’t argue with that so he listens to them swap places and he can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face when Mikey hugs him immediately. “I missed you.”

“Same to you,” Pete whispers and kisses his cheek. He wonders if Patrick is alarmed at the lack of covers Mikey has each night because of Pete subtly stealing most of them.

“I’m not gonna go tomorrow,” he says, mostly to Patrick.

“Wait,” Pete starts and he coaxes Mikey into a sitting position. “You were leaving?”

Mikey laughs timidly, wondering why Patrick left that part of the conversation out when he was talking to Pete. “I just... uh, I’m not going for my... walk tomorrow. The weather will be bad, apparently,” he lies and because Pete has never paid any attention to the news in all the time Mikey has known him for, he believes Mikey without needing to be convinced. Patrick just muffles his laughter with his hands, knowing that the predicted forecast for tomorrow is a heatwave.

It’s weird being on the edge of the bed with barely a fraction of the covers covering him and it’s weird to have nobody holding him. He’s now developing a deep understanding of Mikey’s constant worry of falling out of the bed.

“Guys,” Patrick says and he shuffles closer to Mikey to feel safer. “We need a bigger bed.”

“I’ve been saying that for years.” Mikey looks at Pete, who subtly tugs more covers towards him and then shrugs sheepishly.

“If you guys want to pay for it...”

Mikey rolls over to express his complete disinterest in doing that and he hugs Patrick tightly while ignoring Pete’s lecture on how he’s not contributing money towards something that he doesn’t want. The lecture literally bores Patrick and Mikey to sleep, and both of them are out cold while Pete continues his rant deep into the night, too unobservant to realise that his words are falling on deaf ears. When he eventually does notice, he laughs so hard it wakes both of them back up, and Mikey wonders if leaving the couch was a good idea. He’s had more peaceful sleeps on there in the past couple of days than in his whole life when in this bed.

But he wouldn’t change it for the world.

~

At 9AM, a loud thumping sound on the door downstairs causes Mikey to wake with a start and he pushes himself up into a sitting position, expecting his body to start aching any second from being shoved onto the floor by a sleepy, aggressive Patrick. If the door goes before any of them are awake, Patrick always pushes whichever boyfriend he is facing at that moment off of the bed so they can answer it, and unfortunately that person is mostly Mikey. But instead of carpeted floor, Mikey’s hands find bedsheets and Patrick’s arm and the shirt Pete must have taken off during the night, and suddenly he realises just how many opportunities being in the middle of the bed gives him.

Without any hesitation and in an act of revenge for all the times throughout the years that Patrick has disturbed Mikey’s sleep, Mikey practically throws his youngest boyfriend off the bed and shows no hint of remorse when a frightened shout comes after the thud.

“Answer the door, ‘Rick,” Mikey murmurs sleepily, repeating the infamous sentence that usually comes from Patrick’s mouth, and seconds later his arm is slapped.

“Tonight the sleeping arrangements go back to normal,” Patrick says grumpily and huffs as he sits up, dusting down his pyjamas and shakily rising to his feet. Mikey squints his eyes and wishes he wasn’t borderline blind so he could see just how pissed Patrick is. He bites his tongue to hide laughter as the blurred figure leaves the room.

With his eyes shut, Mikey strains his ears to listen to Patrick speaking. Voices are very audible but the only sentence Mikey catches onto is Patrick saying, “No, he changed his mind”, and seconds later there are footsteps coming upstairs. At first Mikey thinks it’s Patrick returning to the bedroom to strangle him for making him get out of bed, but then he hears a voice that is familiar.

“Mikey! Mikey, I’m going to fucking murder you!”

“Is that Gerard?” Pete asks and coughs to clear his voice. “Why’s he here?”

Mikey sits up again just in time to witness his older brother all but kicking the door open, and he has Mikey up on his feet and against the wardrobe before Mikey has even managed to grab his glasses.

“You dramatically call me last night sobbing your eyes out saying you wanted out of this weird-as-fuck relationship thing and demand I pick you up at _nine o’clock in the fucking morning_ and then when I make the two hour drive and arrive right on time the little one with glasses tells me you’ve changed your fucking mind?!” Gerard’s voice could shatter glass and Mikey holds his hands out in front of him to defend himself, half expecting Gerard to full-on punch him. Even though Gerard wouldn’t hurt him for all the money in the world, Mikey still thinks otherwise whenever he’s as mad as what he is right now.

“I-“

“Shut up and pack your shit!”

“I’m not going-“

“I didn’t come all this way to leave empty handed! Go!” He coaxes Mikey to move forward and Mikey stumbles blindly onto the bed. Thankfully, Pete catches him before he falls on his face.

“You really wanted out?” He asks, heartbreak evident in his voice, and Mikey just shrugs wordlessly as he allows Pete to hand him his glasses.

“Yes I would like a coffee, yes I enjoyed my drive, no I would not like to watch television,” Gerard directs this sentence towards Pete and Patrick and then he heads back downstairs with an extremely nervous Patrick trailing slowly behind him.

“Your brother is fucking terrifying,” Pete whispers, paranoid that Gerard will somehow hear him and kick his ass for it. However, his concern over the new information that Mikey wanted to leave outweighs that worry, so he steers the conversation back to more important matters. “You wanted out of this? Is that what you actually meant last night when you talked about leaving?”

“Pete...” Mikey sighs, a clear sign that he doesn’t under any circumstances want to talk about this, but when he attempts to stand up Pete holds him in place. Looks like escaping this is impossible. “Yes,” he confesses. “Yes, I wanted out, but I don’t anymore. I promise.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“’Cause I was sad,” Mikey says as he lifts his t-shirt over his head. He’s conscious of Pete’s eyes focusing on the burn scars on his wrists as he awkwardly reaches over to the pile of clothes from yesterday to find a jumper. The first one he picks up is Pete’s and although it’s a little too short and has a toothpaste stain on the collar of it, Mikey decides it’s suitable. “And no offence, but I wanted to piss you off. I knew it would piss you off if I disappeared for a while.”

When Mikey tries to stand up this time, Pete lets him. “You didn’t consider Patrick?”

“I did. But like I said, I was so angry that I wanted everyone else to feel the same way.”

Now, Mikey is by the drawers and shoving some socks and fresh underwear into his bag, followed by two of his own shirts and a pair of skinny jeans. He zips the bag up before unzipping a smaller pouch at the front, where he puts his wallet and his phone charger. Then he returns to near the bed to collect his book and phone.

Pete follows him into the spare room to watch him collect a couple of albums from the CD stand and some movies from the shelf above the computer desk.

“So you’re leaving even though we sorted everything out?”

“I’ll come back,” Mikey says, “but I did tell Gee I’d crash at his for a week or so and I’m really not up for him beating me into a coma for forcing him to come all this way for nothing, so it’s easier to just go with him.” He laughs as he makes his way towards the bathroom for his toothbrush.

“Mikey, he’s genuinely scary,” Pete says slowly.

“He’s honestly not. This is all an act; he cries when he’s alone in the dark. You guys just don’t know that because you never see him,” Mikey explains. Because of the distance, he rarely gets to meet up with his brother as it is, and his boyfriends see him even less. He’s lucky if he visits Gerard once a month, or vice versa.

Once Mikey has packed everything he thinks is necessary for his trip to the other end of the city, he and Pete go downstairs and into the kitchen, where they see Patrick serving what appears to be a third cup of coffee to Gerard.

“Gee, my boy isn’t your slave.”

“I’ve been awake since five in the morning because of you assholes. Of course he is,” Gerard snaps and takes a sip from the cup. Patrick hides his face behind a newspaper that he isn’t reading.

“I’m ready to go,” Mikey says awkwardly and zips up his jacket. “Can we stop for food on the drive back?”

Gerard doesn’t respond and instead trains his eyes on Pete, who is beginning to look extremely uneasy. Just as Pete is about to question why, Gerard suddenly smiles and looks at Mikey. “Yep, ready to go. We’re stopping for KFC, if you have any complaints you can walk.”

“I... don’t even want to come to your house, so-“

“You and I are going to KFC and if you have any complaints you can _walk_ ,” Gerard says firmly and grabs Mikey’s wrist almost as hard as Pete had grabbed it during their fight. Mikey just rolls his eyes, totally used to his brother’s early-morning temper, and kisses Pete and Patrick goodbye before following him out of the door.

Patrick stands by the door, still clad in his pyjamas and his legs shaking from the cold breeze that comes into the kitchen. So much for the supposed heatwave that was meant to happen. Pete is next to him, and both of them silently observe as Mikey puts his bag into the backseat of Gerard’s car and then opens the passenger door.

Deafening music is audible even when the car doors shut and Pete is convinced Gerard is going at least 20mph over the speed limit when he reverses out of the driveway and speeds out of the street. The engine grows more distant until it is eventually out of earshot, and Patrick turns to Pete.

“Should we follow them?”

Immediately, Pete grabs his coat and his shoes. “Oh my god, _yes_ , Patrick. We should catch up with them and keep a safe distance all the way to Gerard’s house, and once they arrive we can pull up beside them, kidnap Mikey and take him back home! Go get ready!”

“Wouldn’t it be _rescuing_ him instead of kidnapping if we’re bringing him home?” Patrick asks dubiously, but he starts walking towards the stairs nonetheless. Pete follows behind him, beaming, and loudly discusses his plans to kidnap Gerard as well, just because _it will be fucking hilarious for him to have to endure the two hour drive **four** times in one day, come on Patrick!_

~

An hour into the drive and Mikey is finishing the last of his food whilst listening intently to Gerard explaining his newest comic concept. Having calmed down from being forced to venture outside this early, Gerard is now soft spoken and smiley, and Mikey is bopping his head along to the music ever so slightly as he eats. They’re both content.

“I think that has a lot of potential. You should do it,” he says once Gerard is done talking. He turns to his brother to elaborate further when, in the rear-view mirror, he catches sight of a too-familiar car trailing behind them from a distance. The black-haired driver has a beanie on and sunglasses to cover his face, as well as a scarf around his mouth, and the person in the passenger seat has his hair straightened and styled in an almost feminine way. Thick-rimmed glasses are on his face, he too has a scarf around his mouth, and he appears to be wearing makeup as well. There are no recognizable features about them, save from hair colour. If it weren’t for the licence plate on the car, Mikey wouldn’t give them a second glance.

The driver waves when he sees Mikey turn around and Mikey laughs loudly. When Gerard questions it, he simply says, “Just thought of somethin’ funny,” and he leans back into his seat and focuses on the road ahead.

His phone lights up, showing notifications from the groupchat he shares with his boyfriends. The new title is  _mikeys' fan club <333_ and it makes Mikey laugh. His chest feels warm and he reads the messages with his head ducked down to hide his blush.

**_Pete :D -_ ** _@Mikey hey baby! i will give you $50 if you convince gerard he’s being followed. i want him to be as scared as i was this morning. im disguised and rick looks like a girl. please it will be funny he won’t know its us. xx_

**_Patrick :) –_ ** _no it wont pete !!!!! thats the worst idea youve ever come up with !!!!_

**_Pete :D -_ ** _you are literally right beside me why are you texting me. speak_

**_Patrick :) –_ ** _why are you texting and DRIVING !!!!!!!!_

**_Mikey <3 –_ ** _Pete, we can’t do this plan if you crash..._

The notifications stop immediately and Mikey grins smugly. After locking his phone, he stretches his legs as much as he can in the restricted space and then looks at Gerard.

“Hey, Gee? I’ve got some bad news...”

**Author's Note:**

> @ me what the fuck is that ending??
> 
> Jokes aside, I hope you enjoyed this! Kudos & feedback appreciated as always. Happy Easter <3.


End file.
